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October 22, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 22 October 2025

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Tomtoddy

The climate hypocrites are fuelling up their jets ready for COP30 in Brazil. At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan about 150 private jets arrived carrying the lovely people who wasted no time in telling us mere mortals to cut back on our emissions because the world is about to end, the planet has reached tipping point, the sea is about to engulf us, food production is failing, weather is worsening and much more.

Which tells you that COP30 is not really about climate concerns but about having another jamboree in yet another exotic venue, pumping the gullible taxpayers for more research funds, and providing exaggerated and made up information to the world’s media who are too lazy to do investigative journalism.

Meanwhile Brazil hacked down a heap of trees to create a new motorway to ease the increased traffic expected for COP30. Oh, the ironies!!!!
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October 22, 2025 8:04am
- cmm
  
  Meanwhile starving plants across the world thank their human overlords for giving them a bit more food to eat….
  
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  October 22, 2025 8:11am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Indeed
  
  Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit
  
  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o
  
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  October 22, 2025 8:26am
- Master Mariner
  
  The really interesting thing for me is the last 3 choices to have a COP.
  
  UAE, Azerbijan and now Brazil.
  
  I mean you could not pick out countries with a more vested interest in hydrocarbons.
  
  Surely this is not lost on the “enlightened ones” attending Or is it ?
  
  I mean if you seriously wanted to slowly awaken the masses to the Hypocrisy of Climate Change then these last 3 venues would be very similar to what you would choose, ie Intentional .
  However if you were a True Believer you would never choose these venues what so ever.
  
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  October 22, 2025 9:02am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
    
    Brazil grants oil exploration licence in Amazon region
    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2735yp75ko
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:00am
  - R
    
    what so ever. But … but these are never visited here before places. We are spending OPM,so it is a good choice. Dont want to spend our own money in case we don’t like the place.
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:46am
- David Garrett
  
  Tom: The earth has already reached a number of “tipping points” (someone should make a study and count them)…meanwhile life goes on…
  
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  October 22, 2025 9:05am
  - cmm
    
    I’m sure I died when we ran out of oil (Hint, we have enough hydrocarbons to make 300 years of all our oil needs just in Southland lignite).
    Or maybe it was during the new ice age in the 70s.
    
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    October 22, 2025 9:13am
  - I remember when
    
    I remember when “tipping points” used to be restaurants.
    
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    October 22, 2025 9:37am
- AitchW
  
  How is it that these climate champions don’t see the screaming hypocrisy in what they do?
  I’d love to see someone at the meeting calculate the carbon footprint of the COP and challenge them to justify it.
  Has any of these gabfests ever made a jot of difference to the climate? A pile of actors and musicians enjoying a few days of wining, dining, and prostitutes is not productive. Posturing hypocrites….
  
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  October 22, 2025 9:16am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Perhaps they should write a report.
    
    What I Did On My Jaunt
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:48am
  - David Garrett
    
    Aitch: I have no personal experience you understand, but I very much doubt there are many prostitutes in the UAE…Being a fan of dusky maidens myself, the Brazilians ones would be much more to my taste.
    
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    October 22, 2025 12:43pm
    - Paulus
      
      Should be in New York where we understand a 17 years old prostitute who screwed a Duke some three times was given some $15.000 for the enjoyment ( called rape, now was said).
      
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      October 22, 2025 1:50pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Apparently homosexuality is rife in the Arab countries, hence the convenient elongated shirts.
      
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      October 22, 2025 4:09pm
- peterwn
  
  Why do not they use ZOOM or similar?
  
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  October 22, 2025 9:50am
  - AitchW
    
    Internet causes global warming donchaknow?
    
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    October 22, 2025 9:59am
  - Ehlana
    
    Because, synergy and chance encounters and conversations outside formal meetings are what lead to the breakthroughs that will save our planet, don’t you know?
    
    Plus, how can you possibly appreciate my commitment and sacrifice of giving up my time and travelling all this way and my new ethically sourced luggage line unless we meet?
    
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    October 22, 2025 10:03am
  - Ra Henare
    
    Of course, it seems you dont understand conferences. Most of the real work is done by smoozing.
    Not viable with Zoom.
    
    Having used Zoom for some meetings. Its crap in terms of human interaction and getting to know the other people. IMHO
    
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    October 22, 2025 3:56pm
Scott

For all those out there that say Chris Luxon never takes a stand on anything, well here is Luxon taking a stand on something really important. He says, If you can work you should and not be on the couch expecting others to fund your lifestyle. That’s good stuff from Luxon:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQBSnlbEtRN/?igsh=MXIyeTNreWU2d3Ju

Young kiwis need to be out working. Every day I see foreigners doing jobs that kiwis could be doing. Fixing a roof, driving a courier van, serving in a cafe. So many foreigners. Where are the kiwis?

Kiwis should be our first priority. They need encouragement, a carrot, to work and a stick if they won’t work. National is trying to get kiwis working. Good on them I say! 👍
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October 22, 2025 8:04am
- Wandering Star
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  “Young kiwis need to be out working. Every day I see foreigners doing jobs that kiwis could be doing. Fixing a roof, driving a courier van, serving in a cafe. So many foreigners. Where are the kiwis?”
  
  There’s a myth that there are some jobs natives won’t do. That’s true in some cases, but not all. It’s more that there are jobs they won’t do for the poor pay foreigners will accept. Go to any chain hotel, and the staff are 95% Asians and Indians.
  
  I wonder how many of these foreigners are being in whole or in part paid under the table, and are subsidised in some way by the taxpayer?
  
  That is certainly how the “foreign labour” /immigration rort works in the US: big donors employ all the cheap foreign labour, and the taxpayer takes up the slack.
  
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  October 22, 2025 8:14am
  - Cassandra
    
    If it’s true in some cases then it’s not a myth. Duh!
    
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    October 22, 2025 8:26am
    - Wandering Star
      
      Not at all: the claim is that there are certain jobs that locals won’t do. That’s a claim about the jobs, not a claim about the people. The reason they won’t do those jobs (with the exceptions I grant) is because they don’t pay well enough (another claim about the jobs).
      
      The facts are we have a low wage economy because of neoliberal policies (i.e. Globalism), wherein we have an ever-expanding underclass of (mostly) cheap foreign labour who accept low pay because it is still better than what they left behind in their own countries.
      
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      October 22, 2025 12:04pm
      - wsk12345
        
        Our min wage is one of the highest in the world! What am I missing in your argument, it just doesn’t seem to compute.
        
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        October 22, 2025 12:59pm
      - pdm
        
        WS contract fruit pickers make big money because they are paid for what they produce – eg by the bin.
        
        The good ones have to be told to stop and go home in the evening. They think nothing of doing 12 hour days.
        
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        October 22, 2025 1:22pm
      - Wandering Star
        
        wsk12345
        So what? I’m sure you wouldn’t mind living off the minimum wage then? The cost of living has also skyrocketed, which negates a “high” minimum wage.
        
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        October 22, 2025 1:31pm
      - Paulus
        
        Our Minimum Wage rate is the second highest in the World too, we are told !
        
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        October 22, 2025 1:52pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        Talking to a KIwifruit/Avacado orchard owner.
        For picking labour he prefers
        1. Islanders on special work permits. Diligent and most productive.
        
        2. “”backpackers””/students on 2 year Visas. Work like crazy until they have enough money.
        But dont have the daily staying power of Islanders.
        
        3. WINZ referees especially the young. Lazy, non-productive, insist on minimum wage no matter how many bins they pick.
        
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        October 22, 2025 4:02pm
      - wsk12345
        
        WS I am currently not working, not on a benefit and living off savings. And yes I spend well under the min wage to live. I don’t mind it at all. Lots of free time, and the things I like to do are mostly free.
        
        What’s your point though? If I was working I would generally earn above the min wage because I invested in myself. That’s how I have the option of some time out. Is that a crime now, to have more than some unskilled person?
        
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        October 22, 2025 4:13pm
  - pdm
    
    WS perhaps you would care to explain why New Zealanders sent by WINZ (or whatever it is called these days) to pick fruit have since 1984 been damaging the fruit so they get sacked. These people do not want to work since forever.
    
    That is right WS – I first heard of this in 1984 and it has been ongoing since then.
    
    BTW when first married in the early 1970’s I used to take a couple of weeks holiday to work picking fruit. The money earned paid for a weeks family holiday later in the year.
    
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    October 22, 2025 8:31am
    - Paulus
      
      Years ago worked in a fruit packhouse in BOP so could see how easy it is to get sacked so return to Winz was easy.
      Stuff the system fast moving machines.
      
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      October 22, 2025 8:43am
      - artemisia
        
        New Zealand is well advanced in robotic apple packing tech, selling it overseas as well. And robotic picking kiwifruit also in play, apples coming once the trees planted for that tech start producing.
        
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        October 22, 2025 2:06pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        A couple of years back I worked in a Kiwifruit packhouse near Tauranga.
        A great experience.
        
        A very wide range of people from old blokes, mature Mums, after school students, a wide range of ethnicities.
        
        Loved the work ethic and the worker centric Management style.
        
        Sadly my back told me not to be stupid, not a job for a 74-year-old(there was a 70 year old white guy battling away every day, no back problems)
        
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        October 22, 2025 4:06pm
    - cas
      
      Too true. I’ve heard of a family sent out to pick kiwifruit all pretending they had stood on one and wrecked their knees. Or else they deliberately pick badly and then complain that they have got the sack. Thank goodness for all the RSE workers.
      
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      October 22, 2025 9:14am
      - Countrygirl
        
        One of the last times we had kiwifruit picked in our orchard, one half was an Indian gang, the other was a local tangata whenua group. The Indians sang and laughed and picked a lot of fruit very well. The other gang dropped fruit, went over the back to smoke dope, swore and cursed, broke the canes and ended up with the pack house sacking the lot of them. They were worse than useless.
        
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        October 22, 2025 5:31pm
    - AitchW
      
      Very few employers want an employee from WINZ unless they have the opportunity to select that employee.
      Anyone send from WINZ is likely to be uninterested in getting a job, they just go along to satisfy the requirement to look for work.
      Many will do a couple of days, turn up late for the next couple of days, then simply not turn up.
      
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      October 22, 2025 9:21am
      - Ra Henare
        
        Many moons ago, we had a startup that needed a receptionist. Then Gummint was subsidising hiring from the dole.
        
        A few bludgers. Memorably, was a 30+ year old woman. Who turned up smoking, immediately leaned against the doorway and gave us a list of things she wouldn’t do. Clean, do errands etc etc.
        Yep, straight back to the dole.
        
        However, we interviewed a young Kiwi born Indian Girl, who was as keen as mustard. We hired her. She grew with the company and became a VERY valuable staff member and manager.
        
        We found out she had gone to a dozen interviews with a range of companies, and each time basically got the dont like Indians refusal.
        
        Taught me that generalisations are a waste of time. There are pearls amongst the swine.
        
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        October 22, 2025 5:36pm
    - R
      
      pdm,…..the country in general, doesn’t posses within many of it’s citizens, the degree of self support initiative that you displayed back then. Much easier to call for more WELFARE. Incidentally I recall doing similar holiday money work at that time, same age group
      
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      October 22, 2025 10:05am
      - AitchW
        
        I used to work on a hay gang in summer, a dairy farm in the August holidays and whatever I could find in the May holiday.
        When was older and able to drive I did soft drink delivery in summer.
        None of these made me rich, but it was good for the soul to earn my own money.
        To be fair hay gangs are pretty much a thing of the past, as are soft drink deliveries. But I’m sure there are plenty of other seasonal jobs available to high school kids.
        
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        October 22, 2025 10:54am
      - Don Beckett
        
        The answer is to stop the dole – or whatever they call it now. The the complaints would start like a jet engine winding up.
        But no politician has the guts to do it.
        Pres Milieu – can you come & help us – PLEASE.
        
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        October 22, 2025 11:38am
      - pdm
        
        Aitch when I left school I did hay from end of term (early December) until I started with the BNZ on 6 January 1964.
        
        Best single one off payment I ever got was in 1962 when I lambed a ewe on a neighbours property while doing my paper run. Had to tie the ewe to the fence because she `did not take the lamb’. Next morning the neighbour dropped me in half a crown just for that.
        
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        October 22, 2025 1:27pm
      - David Garrett
        
        WS is obviously busy…working on his thesis again I suspect
        
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        October 22, 2025 3:53pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      “The money earned paid for a weeks family holiday later in the year.”
      
      It’s a completely different world these days. As a Boomer who is likely better off than both your parents and your children and grandchildren, its no wonder you have such a distorted view of things.
      
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      October 22, 2025 12:28pm
      - David Garrett
        
        WS: Ok, I’ll play…back in the 70’s if a fit and well young man signed up for the dole in the Autumn, he would be given a bus ticket to Hawkes Bay, some money for expenses, and the phone numbers of orchardists looking for workers. If you didnt fancy that, tough: no dole for you.
        
        Other than the fact that Islanders and foreign back packers now do that work — because no young NZers will do it – do explain how the world is so different from 50 years ago.
        
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        October 22, 2025 1:13pm
  - notreadyet
    
    The myth regarding foreign workers is definitely not a myth when you go onto all the Dairy farms in the Waikato, staff are predominantly from the Phillopines
    
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    October 22, 2025 8:40am
    - AitchW
      
      The dairy farmers I know all rate their Phillipino workers. They’re hard working and respectful. Generally drug free and many of them don’t drink.
      
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      October 22, 2025 10:55am
      - Don Beckett
        
        Filipinos are great people – respectful, polite and always happy.
        
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        October 22, 2025 4:34pm
    - Paulus
      
      And like many seasonal overseas worker are great employees.
      
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      October 22, 2025 1:54pm
  - RichardF
    
    Our minimum wage is one of the highest in the world. Many employers pay a ‘living wage’.
    
    Both options pay more than the dole.
    
    I had a young family friend stuck in benefit dependency. She had that mindset you describe, “what’s the point, it’s not paying enough”.
    
    She eventually got a job as a casual kitchen assistant at an events company. Working did her a world of good, she met new people, a whole new world opened up. Within a few months her boss offered her a permanent position. She decided she wanted to be a chef and was getting her life on a good track after many mental health struggles.
    
    Tragically she died in an accident before her 30th birthday and never fulfilled her dream, but those two years working were the happiest she had been in a decade.
    
    There is more to work than just the hourly wage. Many young people lack a purpose.
    
    Work is good for the soul.
    
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    October 22, 2025 8:56am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Our minimum wage is one of the highest in the world.
      
      And there’s our problem:
      The adult minimum wage applies to all employees who are:
      
      aged 16 years and over, who aren’t starting-out workers or trainees
      involved in supervising or training other employees.
      
      https://www.business.govt.nz/people-and-leave/having-a-fair-workplace/minimum-wage-and-fair-pay
      
      Whereas in Australia:
      Under 16, you should get 36.8%, or $9.18 an hour.
      Aged 16, you should get 47.3%, or $11.80 an hour.
      Aged 17, you should get 57.8%, or $14.42 an hour.
      Aged 18, you should get 68.3%, or $17.04 an hour.
      Aged 19, you should get 82.5%, or $20.58 an hour.
      Aged 20, you should get 97.7%,or $24.37 an hour.
      
      https://awu.net.au/minimum-wage/
      
      This means businesses in Oz are willing to offer employment to youngsters.
      
      Too risky in NZ to offer employment to a youngster who doesn’t have a track record of pulling their weight.
      
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      October 22, 2025 11:15am
      - R
        
        Where as…we once had a similar regime in NZ then along came Labour with their
        ‘ every one is entitled’ mantra, and the countries productivity has declined ever since. Now it is an embedded RIGHT, and consequently political suicide to attempt to change. Look at the present behavior of PSA, and some professional employees, tomorrow if it doesn’t rain
        
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        October 22, 2025 11:54am
      - [email protected]
        
        Because hiring someone in New Zealand is similar to marrying that person. Almost impossible to get “divorced”.
        
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        October 22, 2025 12:21pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Maggy: I was in parliament with Roger Douglas – not the most passionate of speakers. But on one occasion I remember being taken aback by the passion of one of Roger’s speeches…it was in youth pay rates – which of course were anathema to Labour.
        Roger said : ” Mr Speaker, those members [meaning Labour] would rather have young people with no skills sitting watching TV getting paid $2 an hour rather than earning 10 or 15 dollars working in an entry level job, learning some skills and getting something to put on a CV.
        
        After five years on the dole that young person will NEVER have a job, condemned to life on a benefit. Shame on those members”.
        
        Roger was 100% correct. Shame on Labour and the Greens.
        
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        October 22, 2025 1:33pm
      - artemisia
        
        Australia first year apprentices pay – minimum, AUD …
        
        Example, plumbing:
        
        Under 17 years of age: $601.00 per week
        17 to 20 years of age: $657.14 per week
        Over 21 years of age: $987.53 per week
        
        https://www.migas.com.au/blog/what-1st-year-apprentices-get-paid-2025-2026-award-wages-guide
        
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        October 22, 2025 2:18pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        And DG, in NZ there is a clear demographic (or subculture if you like) who simply don’t give a crap about pretty much anything involving personal responsibility. NZ also has an unhinged political party now assuring this subculture they have wonderful excuses for being worse than useless sacks of 💩 ). Flooding the place with low skilled immigrants taking what jobs they COULD have done makes it worse than impossible to get those people off the couch/drugs/crime.
        
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        October 23, 2025 4:39pm
  - cmm
    
    “There’s a myth that there are some jobs natives won’t do”
    
    For the last year we have been a one-car family and I have caught occasional taxis.
    
    Of the dozens of different drivers I have had, there have been two white Kiwis (both retired and doing a few hours a week to get out of the house/make a few extra $).
    
    Zero Maori.
    
    “It’s more that there are jobs they won’t do for the poor pay foreigners will accept.”
    
    Ummm, that is only because they feel entitled to high wages and the dole is far too high and is far too easy to get.
    
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    October 22, 2025 9:17am
    - JerJer
      
      The foreigners we speak of here are hardworking, willing to start at the bottom, don’t drink and take drugs. They accumulate wealth and re-invest. They come from countries that don’t give a rats about lazy poor people. Where they come from you sink or swim. They will eventually take over. I wait for the complaining when the memo goes out to the lazy NZers about the sink or swim concept.
      
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      October 22, 2025 9:21am
      - AitchW
        
        People of all nationalities go overseas to find work. They are the motivated ones. I’m sure there are plenty of slack, lazy Indians, Chinese, Phillipino folks living in Mum’s basement.
        Similarly there are plenty of motivated hard working Kiwis off shore.
        
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        October 22, 2025 10:58am
      - Taieri
        
        Not all foreigner are hardworking, willing to start at the bottom, don’t drink or take drugs. In fact, quite a few recent and not so recent immigrants are just that; they cheat, have an inflated perception of their own value, are lazy, drink and take drugs.
        
        Not all unemployed Kiwis are lazy. Quite a few of them are willing to give it a go. It doesn’t come down just to “foreigners good, Kiwis bad”. But if the system rewards people for doing nothing, they will do just that – nothing.
        
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        October 22, 2025 11:05am
      - R
        
        Sink or swim concept; or ‘get back to work!’ if you expect to be paid this week.
        
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        October 22, 2025 11:57am
      - Ra Henare
        
        It is my observation having lived in and worked in a few different countries.
        Those that travel to work in a foreign country are motivated, those who stay in their home countries don’t(generally) have the same motivation.
        
        Some exceptions for Kiwis in Australia…. 🙂
        But ALL other countries I have been in. Including UK, France, Australia, Canada, SE Asia Kiwis are go getters (if they stay after the OE)
        
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        October 22, 2025 5:48pm
    - amospicton
      
      Yes cmm, the key word is “entitled”. We’ve grown to think we’re entitled to a certain lifestyle and that it’s a basic human right. It’s not. Much as we’ve tried to sanitise it, life’s a Darwinian struggle. We give our best to survive and then thrive and that makes a better world than doing nothing. It’s cruel to some extent, because not all thrive, but it means a higher average standard of living. As soon as the achievers are compelled to subsidise the rest the overall pie shrinks.
      
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      October 22, 2025 9:30am
      - R
        
        shrinks…..and the achievers emigrated.
        
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        October 22, 2025 11:58am
    - Ian Boag
      
      There’s another myth that there are enough jobs to soak up the beneficiary pool. I did the sums a while back to suggest that Palmy probably has something like 3000 people on jobseeker. I have a bit of trouble with the idea that there are 3000 jobs to be had in the area.
      
      Every little bit helps of course but the numbers are not flash. The Christchurch area has about 450,000 people – 8% of the country so one might guess the number of people on jobseeker is about 16000 (8% of 200,000) . Might not be quite that many jobs around right now.
      
      Don’t get me wrong – every little helps – slackers on the couch get up my nose too. But the numbers are a bit stark.
      
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      October 22, 2025 9:30am
      - R
        
        Presently about 157,000 employment opportunities in the country
        
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        October 22, 2025 10:07am
      - Nigel Kearney
        
        The minimum wage is the elephant in the room here. There are definitely 3000 jobs in Palmerston North, just not ones where anyone will pay $23.50 per hour plus ACC, Kiwisaver etc. That elephant has stomped all over most of those jobs.
        
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        October 22, 2025 10:35am
      - cmm
        
        “There’s another myth that there are enough jobs to soak up the beneficiary pool.”
        
        It isn’t all or nothing.
        
        There are thousands of jobs that require few skills and have close to zero barrier to entry than many beneficiaries could do – if they wanted.
        
        What is missing is the motivation.
        
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        October 22, 2025 11:36am
      - Ian Boag
        
        “Thousands” or even “157,000”! Wow. Where did that number come from? How could I have not seen it? Can I see the same list that you saw?
        
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        October 22, 2025 11:40am
      - Ian Boag
        
        @Nige
        
        There are definitely 3000 jobs in Palmerston North.
        
        Wow. You live here too? Perhaps you could indicate – in general terms – what a few hundred of these jobs might be ….
        
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        October 22, 2025 11:46am
      - artemisia
        
        Mr Hosking this morning after the 6 am news. Currently a skills shortage of 157,000 in manufacturing, engineering and logistics. Plus mention that more than a few are heading for retirement.
        
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        October 22, 2025 2:26pm
  - I remember when
    
    “..in whole or in part paid under the table..”
    
    Or, do they have more than one job?
    
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    October 22, 2025 9:33am
- Paulus
  
  Many of those not working are of the superior race so why should they go to a job when at present they can get money from both drugs and the taxpayers.
  
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  October 22, 2025 8:39am
  - imalwaysright
    
    There is a mentality that the amount of the dole is subtracted from the wages to get the effective hourly rate.
    
    This is how they justify not going to work.
    
    They see the difference in income as say $10/hr and tell themselves that there is no way they are disrupting their current lifestyle for such a paltry amount.
    
    Sad but true.
    
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    October 22, 2025 9:11am
    - cmm
      
      Yup for them it is how they view the world.
      
      Get out of bed for an extra “$2.50 an hour?” Naah, not worth it. Doesn’t even cover bus fare/child care/…
      
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      October 22, 2025 11:18am
      - Ian Boag
        
        If bus fare and childcare costs and benefit abatement have the effect of lowering your income, staying on the dole is a perfectly rational approach. Obviously the dole is too generous ….
        
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        October 22, 2025 11:49am
      - cmm
        
        Correct Ian, it is completely rational behaviour.
        
        The structure of these “poverty traps” is all wrong and makes it irrational to work for an intermediate wage.
        
        If you’re going to get off the dole, it would seem you need to be getting at least $30 to $35/hr to even contemplate it.
        
        The dole structure is massively broken.
        
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        October 22, 2025 12:03pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Cap the dole.
        Start the entitlement to one year in five. And move it out arithmetically.
        
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        October 22, 2025 12:06pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        The poverty trap thing.
        
        The logic applies to all benefits except that big one that us oldies deserve …
        
        Abatement produces some strange outcomes – effective marginal tax rates north of 80% – and we all think 39% is a disincentive. 🙁 PaulL did a series of rather good posts on the subject and came away with nothing that looked like an outstanding solution.
        
        If you have a solution to the poverty trap issue there is a Nobel Prize with your name on it 🙂
        
        And while we’re engaged here, can you elaborate on those thousands of (unskilled entry level) jobs available around Christchurch? Even a few hundred would be good ….
        
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        October 22, 2025 12:14pm
      - cmm
        
        Ian there are thousand of unskilled jobs around Christchurch alone that have been filled by Indians etc because NZers would not take them.
        
        They were there, they were not taken, so others have.
        
        Can a NZer not drive a taxi? Can a NZer not drive a DHL van? Pump petrol? Work in pizza joints etc?
        
        Bottom line is that when a Punjabi or Afghani taxi driver gives me a ride, I get an engaging and interesting conversation and friendliness – a neat vehicle and a driver proud of what he is doing.
        
        I suspect that if it was a NZer who was “forced” off the dole to drive the taxi I would just be met with a surly driver full of gripes and a chip on his shoulder.
        
        As I understand it, in the days of yore, the NZ Forestry Board (or Plantation Board or whatever the hell it was called) had work schemes that were manned by very uncooperative people.
        
        It turns out that seedlings do not grow into healthy trees if they are planted upside down or had their roots deliberately snapped off.
        
        That is the real problem with taking the disaffected off the dole. They will sabotage any work they are put to and not go at the work with gusto. They are more a hinderance than a help and are not worth anywhere near the minimum wage.
        
        Is there a solution? Maybe the commies got this one right. No work – no eat.
        
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        October 22, 2025 1:08pm
    - sirknz
      
      Someone I know who was on the job seekers while looking after another family member was also working under the table for a previous employer.
      
      They were clearing a lot more on the benefit than they were while actually working full time before the family member got sick.
      
      It is the cash paying side hustles that are keepoing them on the benefit.
      
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      October 22, 2025 12:50pm
  - MCōs
    
    I’m British according to one of my passports, therefore a member of the superior race.
    Where do I get this drug money to supplement my pension?
    
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    October 22, 2025 10:26am
    - peterwn
      
      There are various ways and means but bear in mind that Kerobokan and other prisons are rather crummy to say the least.
      
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      October 22, 2025 10:53am
  - PurplePen
    
    So why isn’t the superior race economy employing them
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:06am
- kowtow
  
  What’s ‘e doing about it .
  
  That’s what matters.
  
  Is there not a pattern of “foreign” mass migration with each ‘free” trade deal .
  
  Not to mention huge backdoor migration with the so called overseas education industry .
  
  Me thinks white man speaks with forked tongue .
  
  On a positive note though it looks like he’s going into election mode ………against Winston and Shane.
  
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  October 22, 2025 8:46am
- Northshoredoc
  
  I agree that young NZers should be working if they are able.
  
  How do you determine that the people you see doing said jobs are foreigners?
  
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  October 22, 2025 9:43am
  - Phronesis
    
    It’s almost impossible for those who learn a second language to not to have an accent related to their native language.
    
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    October 22, 2025 10:52am
  - cmm
    
    Just ask them. Most are happy to tell you.
    
    The taxi drivers I speak with are mostly Indian and Afghani. Most of the Indians arrived on student Visas then found a job. Many came during the era after the Chch earthquake and got into construction, truck driving, etc.
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:21am
- Damocles11
  
  Luxon says these things meanwhile the welfare bill increases. Willis talks loudly and earnestly about supermarket and bank competition, meanwhile results are nowhere to be seen.
  Talk is cheap. Talk is not real action and noticeable results.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:03am
Chuck Bird

This is good news. There is no climate emergency.

Government halves pool of companies that need to make climate-related disclosures

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/government-halves-pool-of-companies-that-needs-to-make-climate-related-disclosures/RPPNKGHJQ5A6DCCI2FM5IGBGFM/
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October 22, 2025 8:10am
- waikatosinger
  
  Half the job done.
  
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  October 22, 2025 8:22am
- R
  
  Another example of progressive legislation by a competent coalition government. Undoing the damage done to NZ by past INCOMPETENT labour governments. Foreshore and seabed legislation just past is another example.
  
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  October 22, 2025 8:59am
- Sir Cullen's Sidekick
  
  so sad says Chloe 🙂
  
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  October 22, 2025 9:01am
  - PurplePen
    
    Chloe who? Haven’t heard a peep from her for what seems ages.
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:07am
    - pdm
      
      PP have a watch of QT today.
      
      She is going to jabber out a few questions and then look offended by the answers.
      
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      October 22, 2025 1:39pm
    - Sir Cullen's Sidekick
      
      PurplePen – She will be your Finance Minsiter come 2026
      
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      October 22, 2025 4:15pm
- Master Mariner
  
  Try Reading them, What do they actually tell you ?
  Can you interpret or understand them and are the actually Factual ?
  
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  October 22, 2025 9:11am
- Spam
  
  Russel Norman used to promote “Green Jobs”. He used to talk about things like growing the economy, and that Green Jobs were going to be highly paid and imply that it was the path to deliver the utopian ideal.
  
  The reality is that most of these Green Jobs weren’t ever going to be in manufacturing wind turbines, installing solar panels or developing geothermal energy (in fact, they didn’t like geothermal, because it has some moderate CO2 emissions, and perfect is the enemy of good). No, the majority of these Green Jobs are the sort that this article says are going to be axed: Stupid regulatory assurance jobs that create zero value and are just compliance costs.
  
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  October 22, 2025 9:28am
  - cmm
    
    Green jobs like flying private jets to overseas conferences.
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:22am
  - mogg
    
    High unemployment, Net zero UK has created many thousands of green jobs, the problem is they are all in China.
    
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    October 22, 2025 4:15pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Interesting that the NZ netballers were doing ok against Australia in the last test, pretty much 50:50 until the last quarter when they conceded 24 points and were creamed.

Could it be that Noeline Taurua had a point about the team’s fitness levels?
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October 22, 2025 8:23am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Looking at the credits for the Pike River movie, there’s no mention of anyone playing Andrew Little. Could it be that his role in the tragedy is downplayed?

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/pike-river-feature-2025/credits
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October 22, 2025 8:27am
- Clyde
  
  I counted 9 Executive Producers in those credits. Nine. Anyone from the industry care to comment?
  
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  October 22, 2025 12:17pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

The weather forecast for tomorrow is terrible – like yesterday, with added rain.

What’s the betting that all those striking teachers just don’t turn up to the local demo?
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October 22, 2025 8:28am
- Dougal10
  
  As they aren’t getting paid for the day the local ones are only turning up for an hour at 11 and then going out for lunch . Interestingly enough the local primary school with 10 classrooms so about 14 teachers 7 will be at work and getting paid doing a non contact day as they don’t belong to union. It makes you wonder how many teachers are unionists . The unfortunate thing is the ministry won’t let these non members negotiate a contract better than what they settle with the union for .
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:38am
- R
  
  They will require another paid fay off, preferably during exam time for maximum impact.
  
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  October 22, 2025 12:06pm
  - pdm
    
    A paid day off?
    
    What happened to – no work, no pay?
    
    No wonder the country is stuffed and employers won’t take on extra staff.
    
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    October 22, 2025 1:44pm
Yvette

Mega strike
No one—no one—changes the world by accepting the role of a victim.
You have to take the role of a maker. You have to understand that everything you were cursed with, you were also blessed with. And you have to take that and change the circumstance.
– film maker Guillermo del Toro

A toot of support has as much reality as a combined strike poster or the person who marched for what cannot be solved in combination.

A combined rally may present a wall of wounded pain from those who hold the pain killers.

What is the similarity between this and last year’s Hikoi, where in the end on Parliament’s steps te Pati Maori, who organized it, tried to convinced all the myriad of aggrieved to join the Maori-descendent roll, promising as many as 20 kingmaker seats, where only about 12 are the mathematical possibility – if every Maori adult and child voted, which probably will not happen – and have already for the 2026 Election are still set at 7 seats. So who remembers the Hikoi from Hell and could they rally another one now?

And for those who wonder at irony and think, rather than Love, it may make the world go around –
Whānau Friendly Mega Strike Event … Otherwise there could be some street parking in the Avenues ( especially near schools!! )
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October 22, 2025 8:39am
JohnRidd

Does anybody know any information about the Whangarei Hospital car park fire on Tuesday?
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/10/21/explosions-as-vehicles-burn-in-whangarei-hospital-staff-carpark/

There have been cases when an EV catches fire the MSM try to pass it off as something else.
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October 22, 2025 8:54am
- rangitoto
  
  The claim is that long dry grass caught on fire from a hot exhaust pipe. Looks like the grass strip wasn’t being maintained.
  
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  October 22, 2025 10:50am
  - Ghost
    
    Seems obvious from the burnt plants it was grass plants
    
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    October 22, 2025 10:54am
    - Don Beckett
      
      I would say that’s highly unlikely. It usually needs a naked flame to ignite dry grass.
      
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      October 22, 2025 11:48am
      - Ghost
        
        And id say the fire inspector probably knows his job far better than the kiwiblog experts. No doubt you would also proclaim they are wrong when they determine that tractors have started fires on farms
        
        Where would we be without the arm chair know it alls on kwiiblog?
        
        3 12
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        October 22, 2025 12:11pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Maybe – just maybe – I have experience in that regard.
        Let’s wait & see.
        
        3 2
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        October 22, 2025 4:43pm
      - Ghost
        
        And maybe the fire inspector has experience in what he is saying. But then again, this is kiwiblog, where the experts from the armchair know far more than than actual experts
        
        https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/a-timely-reminder-investigator-on-cause-of-whang%C4%81rei-hospital-car-fire/
        
        Im sure you will write Fire investigator Jason Goffin and give him your report on what you believe it to be and how he is wrong
        
        No, I bet you won’t.
        
        Kiwiblog experts seem to have a habit of being wrong in what they claim has been behind many incidents. Who can forget Steve Otto knowing that LATAM Airlines Flight 800 hit turbulence because he had been on a plane. Or the countless experts on the inter-islander grounding, the naval ship sinking and other incidents involving planes and helicopters.
        
        Move along don, the experts are working on the cause of the fire
        
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        October 22, 2025 4:52pm
      - Ghost
        
        Btw, for the kiwiblog experts it was a RAV4 backed into the grass plantings that started it
        
        0 1
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        October 22, 2025 5:20pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Doubtful that a hot exhaust would ignite dry grass, and if it did so would there be enough dry matter to ignite a vehicle which is largely plastic and metal?
    
    A witness on the news described multiple bangs going off which could have been the battery cells exploding in series after they have been ruptured by the concrete kerb.
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:29am
- Ghost
  
  Msm isn’t passing anything off, fire investigator, as said in that article, watched the cctv and said what they believe caused it
  
  Perhaps you can point out where msm have tried to cover up electric car fires, they always point them out in nz when they’ve caused it
  
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  October 22, 2025 10:58am
- peterwn
  
  “Speaking to 1News, fire investigator Jason Goffin said it was believed the blaze may have been caused by a vehicle with a hot exhaust pipe that ignited long grass.”
  MSM is merely reporting the fire investigator’s belief. The investigator would be able to give a firmer opinion when things have cooled down and he has had a chance to examine the scene closer.
  It is entirely possible that the extent of the damage was worse because some of the cars were EV’s or Hybrids. Again the investigator will be checking this.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:00am
  - Dougal10
    
    So it is actually a paddock fire or was some long dry grass growing in a concrete crack . Exhaust pipe fires are very rare unless there is a starling nest involved and then it really has to be close to the manifold .
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:43am
Sparrow

Before the down ticks come pouring in I accept polls are not reliable and generally only have a small number of subscribers plus this latest poll was carried out by the company that polls for the Labour Party. I was rubbished the other day for suggesting that the public supported tomorrow’s strike. Fair enough it was just my gut feeling. The poll has 65% support for the nurses, doctors, teachers. In the meantime Collins used by the Nats as an attack dog then later by our empathetic PM and then the Public Service boss conveniently having a family get together in OZ and using tax payers money to attack the strikers in social media. Hardly neutral. This is another example how out of touch Luxon and Co are. I am not suggesting the other lot are any better after their latest fizz bomb. Frankly if I was still working I would not employ any one of the 120 seat warmers.
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October 22, 2025 9:11am
- Ghost
  
  Have you ever done a Talbot Mills poll? I have and the questions are incredibly misleading, to the point they give 10 positive options to select for hipkins and 15 mostly negative options for Luxon. 65% from Talbot mills, i wouldn’t trust
  
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  October 22, 2025 10:23am
  - MCōs
    
    At the funeral for C Kirk the celebrant said
    Stand up if you’ve been saved by Jesus and remain seated if you want to be saved by Jesus
    What’s a Hindu supposed to do?
    
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    October 22, 2025 10:32am
    - imalwaysright
      
      Yoga ?
      
      7 0
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      October 22, 2025 10:48am
    - NoFax
      
      Convert
      
      3 0
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      October 22, 2025 11:21am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Convert ?
      
      2 0
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      October 22, 2025 11:50am
      - MCōs
        
        That’s probably not the fundamental point of the service, but I get the impression the guy’s life is being used to promote whatever agenda the hangers on want before his memory fades.
        
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        October 22, 2025 12:42pm
- peterwn
  
  Perhaps you had better watch this:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks
  Sir Humphrey Appleby on conducting polls.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:07am
RoboRob

Good news.

First offshore oil and gas permit sought after repeal of ban

https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/21/first-offshore-oil-and-gas-permit-sought-after-repeal-of-ban/

When I complained that it took National two years to actually pass the legislation to remove the ban people here said, ‘it doesn’t matter, companies are never coming back’. Well we have proof otherwise!

Also, the Greens claim that it takes 10+ years to start production is also apparently bs, as expected. If there is a market for the oil / gas, a company can sometimes be producing in ONE year from the initial find.
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October 22, 2025 9:16am
- MCōs
  
  Don’t get ahead of yourself
  
  “The company was only registered with the Australian Business Register on August 23, less than three weeks after the offshore oil and gas ban was repealed. Its website was registered the same day and provides an email address, which does not work.”
  
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  October 22, 2025 10:40am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Forming a company for a specific project is normal. Its a way of isolating risk.
    
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    October 22, 2025 10:47am
    - MCōs
      
      My point is that effectively nothing tangible has happened yet beyond staking a claim
      
      4 1
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      October 22, 2025 12:33pm
- Master Mariner
  
  Dear O Dear.
  Sounds more like a Hot tip at the races //
  
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  October 22, 2025 10:56am
- Ian Boag
  
  a company can sometimes be producing in ONE year from the initial find .
  
  From offshore. Wow. Can you give us some examples where this has happened?
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:08am
  - Ian Boag
    
    Maui was 10 years, Kupe was 23 ….. Offshore Taranaki is a more benign environment than (far) offshore east of the South Island.
    
    4 5
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    October 22, 2025 11:18am
    - Spam
      
      The actual development can be shorter. Eg. 23 years for Kupe was mostly sitting around doing nothing.
      
      For this particular block, I’d suggest that their best bet would be to pipe it into Kupe Production Station.
      
      But yeah – will take a lot longer than a year – pre and post ‘discovery’. A year of seismic (although they may have some). They would not mobilise a drill rig themselves – assume they share with someone else, and drill summer 27/28. If they find something, they might be able to appraise it on the end of the sequence, but let’s say summer 29/30. Probably a wellhead platform and pipeline(summer 30/31), tie-in and first gas say mid 2031.
      
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      October 22, 2025 11:58am
- Taieri
  
  If there is a market for the oil / gas, a company can sometimes be producing in ONE year from the initial find.
  ————–
  
  No way. It takes much longer than ONE year, just for the initial work (permits, finance, seismic, data processing, exploratory drilling etc.). That is if the equipment is available. Then, there’s the upstream and downstream development – both needing another round of approvals, financing and all the rest of that.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:14am
I remember when

“Iran has been a center of gender transition surgery for years, largely because of government pressure on gays and gender-nonconforming citizens to undergo unwanted operations or risk the death penalty.
Now, faced with a struggling economy crippled by war and sanctions, the Islamic reprublic is hoping to attract transgender foreigners with the promise of inexpensive surgeries packaged with luxury hotel stays and sightseeing tours.” NY Times

Goodbye Gaza, Hello Iran.
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October 22, 2025 9:24am
- Notsofast
  
  Do you get a free glass jar and formaldehyde?
  
  4 0
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  October 22, 2025 11:17am
  - imalwaysright
    
    If you use ethanol instead of formaldehyde it is then technically a cocktail…
    
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    October 22, 2025 4:28pm
EssenX

Yesterday, our host posted about Goldsmith. Someone else in National who I had generally admired also appears to now be tone deaf: Simeon Brown. What does he think he will achieve by publicly slagging healthcare professionals? He needs to pull his head in.
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October 22, 2025 9:26am
- RoboRob
  
  Slightly different view on Simeon. Personally I welcome someone who will point out the issues with the unions and fight for the government. We have allowed the teachers unions to walk all over us for years and look where it has gotten us.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:07am
Rusty

What happened to those three nitwits chained to Nicola Willis’s electoral office?
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October 22, 2025 9:26am
- imalwaysright
  
  Depends.
  Rash?
  
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  October 22, 2025 10:43am
- AitchW
  
  Does anyone care?
  I, for one, certainly don’t.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:02am
- Ehlana
  
  Maybe they’re still there?
  
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  October 22, 2025 3:45pm
Aquarius

Listened to Mark Mitchell and Ginny Andersen on Hosking this morning
God, what an asset to National she is…….
And no, I didn’t get that wrong
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October 22, 2025 9:36am
- Inandout
  
  Aqua, Mark has recovered from his ailment and is back to giggling with gusto. Ginny has holidayed in Italy and perhaps has seen what real life is like with their illgals pouring in by the boatload.
  
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  October 22, 2025 10:22am
- peterwn
  
  Why did Labour make Ginny Minister of Police rather than Greg O’Connor? Surely Greg was the most knowledgeable and experienced Labour on policing matters.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:10am
  - Dougal10
    
    Ginnys husband is the defacto and she is the mouthpiece .
    
    4 0
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    October 22, 2025 11:47am
  - Graham Sharpe
    
    They made her police spokesman because Greg O’Connor has experience and knowledge. Can’t let some smart arsenal interfere in police matters. He might improve things.
    
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    October 22, 2025 11:51am
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    He was white, male and old. Three strikes and he was out. Experience and knowledge had nothing to with it. If he had started to transition he would have been ok.
    
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    October 22, 2025 12:16pm
imalwaysright

The BSA seem to breach more laws and regulations than the companies complained against.

NZ needs an Oversight Committee to control these agencies.

That would prohibit them using Lawfare to impose their ideologies.
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October 22, 2025 9:39am
- PurplePen
  
  HDA on NewstalkZB made a good case for shutting them down. When the BSA was established broadcasting was such that there was no real way to fight back if you didn’t like what was being broadcast. Now there is with the likes of social media and the internet, etc. There is also competition and if a broadcaster isn’t liked by it’s punters they’re toast. In the interim they might offend some but if they continued to offend they likely wouldn’t survive.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:15am
MCōs

Looks like Putin already has what he wants from Trump i.e. no more talk of sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine
The meeting in Budapest has been shelved.
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October 22, 2025 10:04am
- cmm
  
  Tomahawks are incredibly obsolete, but sending them into a conflict area would still be massively provocative.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:30am
  - MCōs
    
    It’s not as if invading another country isn’t provocative
    
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    October 22, 2025 12:30pm
  - rangitoto
    
    If they are obsolete, why would Russia say they are an escalation that could lead to WWIII
    
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    October 22, 2025 1:32pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    The Russians I believe are hitting Kiev with hypersonic missiles. Are they any less “provocative” than Tomahawk cruise missiles?
    
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    October 23, 2025 4:44pm
MCōs

I wonder if Trump will front up for the first game of baseball’s World Series in Toronto on Saturday our time or the third game in Los Angeles?
If the Canadian team wins the first couple of games those ICE people might start checking some of the players credentials at the border
5 3
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October 22, 2025 10:14am
Ehlana

Oxford Union president elect: ““Charlie Kirk got shot loool” and “Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f****** go””. He has now been removed from office after losing a confidence vote he called for.

He says he reacted impulsively and claims “that “cancel culture” has become more prevalent since Kirk’s killing, and said that he believed his race was a factor in how people reacted to his comments.” [He is black]. He now says we should find ““more productive ways to have a conversation or to disagree with someone than to immediately go nuclear and try and ruin someone’s life”.”

Perhaps his next address to the Union could be on the contradictions inherent in his beliefs and comments. He’s got plenty of material.
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October 22, 2025 10:14am
Ghost

What an idiot

Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee is considering whether to take action over Te Pāti Māori MPs burning a copy of a Government bill on Parliament’s forecourt.

Article
17 2
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October 22, 2025 10:28am
- RoboRob
  
  Softly softly Gerry.
  
  He has been considering doing something for quite some time. For example it’s only taken two years for him to realise that the changes to dress code was a mistake. Now we await him to work out what to do about it. Notice the trend here?
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:11am
- Hugh Jarse
  
  I am going to huff and puff and ……..do nothing
  
  10 1
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  October 22, 2025 12:13pm
- cmm
  
  I really can’t see what good it would do Brownlee to pursue this matter, It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
  
  Bottom line is that TPM don’t care what the white mofos say.
  
  This was a stunt for their activist supporters and will likely have gone down well.
  
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  October 22, 2025 12:13pm
  - MCōs
    
    Besides the Speaker did little when David Seymour attempted to drive an old Landrover up parliament’s steps
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360580298/speaker-wont-punish-seymour-over-land-rover-stunt
    
    2 5
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    October 22, 2025 12:29pm
- Nigel Kearney
  
  A harmless attention-grabbing stunt similar to driving a tractor up the steps.
  
  But there’s a good chance Gerry can find some ‘health and safety’ person who will say it was a fire risk.
  
  6 0
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  October 22, 2025 12:31pm
  - pdm
    
    Obviously `The Despicable’ Mallard did not leave the water hoses behind. Otherwise Big Gerry could have used them to put out yesterdays ritual fires.
    
    7 0
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    October 22, 2025 1:53pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Burning a copy of a document?
  Gee. Heavy stuff.
  
  Probably a lot more serious stuff they do that IS worth stomping on.
  
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  October 23, 2025 4:47pm
imalwaysright

Next week the local High School have Prize Giving starting at 6.30pm.

Teachers are being sent home at 12.30pm to give them time to get changed.

How long does it take to swap your work sweater, leggings, and Crocs for your Prize Giving sweater, leggings, and Crocs?
28 1
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October 22, 2025 10:35am
- AitchW
  
  Surely there are teachers changing rooms????
  Any excuse for a few hours out of the classroom…
  
  11 0
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  October 22, 2025 11:03am
- RoboRob
  
  In the old days parent teacher interviews were in the evening. Now they shut the school for the day. Remember these are the people that care about your kids education.
  
  16 0
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  October 22, 2025 11:12am
- cmm
  
  I think you forgot 2 hours of pre-loading.
  
  10 0
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  October 22, 2025 12:14pm
anonymouse

Waiting for reality to set in for the unions’ “mega strike” march to Parliament on Thursday with banners and flags and all manner of potentially lethal items in a howling gale….

Metservice have just upgraded the warnings in Wellington to Red, and said that there is treat to life from flying items and advise that people should stay inside,

The Police or Parliamentary authorities need to order this march not procced,
(Police/NZTA prevented the pro Palestine crowd walking across the harbour bridge in 70km winds a few weeks ago)
So for 140km/h winds it should be a no brainer…

Forecast: Severe gale northwesterlies with damaging gusts of 140 km/h in exposed places.

Impact: Threat to life from flying items and falling trees. Destructive winds will cause widespread damage

Action: Stay indoors or seek sturdy shelter away from trees. Avoid travel. Be ready for power and communication outage
12 1
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October 22, 2025 10:40am
- AitchW
  
  We might get a bit of chlorine in the gene pool….
  
  5 0
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  October 22, 2025 11:04am
- peterwn
  
  Perhaps Parliamentary Services had better check the trees in Parliament grounds today.
  
  8 0
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  October 22, 2025 11:13am
- Nigel Kearney
  
  Cute how people assume that ‘howling wind’ and teacher protests are independent events.
  
  6 0
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  October 22, 2025 2:41pm
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Heh!
    
    1 0
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    October 22, 2025 8:53pm
Ghost

Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring, wrote in her posthumous memoir that she was brutally beaten and raped by an unidentified prime minister and that she feared she might “die a sex slave.”

Article

Wonder who it is
6 1
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October 22, 2025 10:49am
- RoboRob
  
  Wonder why she didn’t name him?
  
  4 0
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  October 22, 2025 11:12am
  - Paulus
    
    Money talks or shuts up !
    
    3 0
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    October 22, 2025 2:07pm
- MCōs
  
  Ehud Barak from what I’ve read
  
  4 2
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  October 22, 2025 11:31am
  - MCōs
    
    https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/world/virginia-giuffre-says-she-was-raped-by-well-known-prime-minister-memoir-reveals-q7yfyh1v
    
    1 3
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    October 22, 2025 11:37am
- imalwaysright
  
  Apparently there are two printed versions. The UK version describes a ‘minister’ while the US version describes ‘prime minister’.
  
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  October 22, 2025 11:47am
- NZer In Exile
  
  Gee looks like a very solid source! Should everything (allegedly) in the those memoirs be believed without question? Do you think there might be some very strong incentives from some quarters currently to vilify Israeli leaders past and present? Without hard receipts it’s very hard to know what really went on in regards the whole Epstein thing.
  
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  October 23, 2025 4:55pm
Taieri

wrote in her posthumous memoir
————

That’s a bit of a contradiction in terms. How can anyone write a “posthumous” memoir?
4 4
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October 22, 2025 11:20am
- MCōs
  
  Her memoir was published posthumously, quite obviously
  
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  October 22, 2025 1:29pm
cmm

I saw a few days ago that a lower decile Christchurch school is offering free uniforms and stationery to kids with “high” attendance (80% or more).

Bad, bad, bad set of incentives that will no doubt backfire.

There are so many things broken with this idea, including:
* It completely distorts the purpose of going to school. People should go to school for the benefit of getting an education – not for the free stuff.
* It sets an ongoing expectation that there will be more free stuff in the future – that kid effectively get paid to go to school.
* Got a uniform already? Why attend regularly unless they give me something else?
* Want us to do homework? Ok, pay us more!
* 80% attendance is set as the benchmark for getting rewarded. That is hopelessly low. That’s hardly showing up. It should not be rewarded.
* People who only turn up 70% will claim hardship/racism/whatever and demand they also get their free stuff… and they will!

But, no doubt, this will be seen as a good thing. Nope, this is the very destructive thinking that is what is keeping these people “low decile”.
14 1
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October 22, 2025 11:58am
- Ian Boag
  
  We can always do nothing, so nothing will change. You all good with that? School uniform costs might be a bit hard for some lower decile families. Ditto for stationery etc
  
  Yes is a perfectly acceptable answer.
  
  You probably have a better idea on how to lift attendance.
  
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  October 22, 2025 12:21pm
  - cmm
    
    No we don’t have to do nothing. We can just enforce the law.
    
    Very few people in NZ live further than walking distance from a school. There really are zero reasons to not be able to get to school except for a few very special cases.
    
    If you think that bribery will fix attendance long term them I think you are severely mistaken.
    
    I do not believe that school uniforms really cost severely. There is (or should be) a roaring trade in second hand uniforms. While a new uniform might cost $150+ (seems crazy to me – it shouldn’t cost a third of that), second hand uniforms should cost $20 or so.
    
    No doubt the same people bitching about a $150 for a new uniform ($3 a week) will happily piss it up on $50 of booze and smokes each week end.
    
    If you’re prepared to spend more on alcohol and junk food etc than your child’s education then you are a shit parent. End of discussion.
    
    12 1
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    October 22, 2025 1:18pm
  - wsk12345
    
    They could get cheap second or home made like we did. We didn’t get the expensive shoes either. There is plenty of cheap stuff around, I see it on community FB pages all the time!
    
    9 0
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    October 22, 2025 1:19pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Or just have a standardised uniform.
      Why is everything in nz bespoke?
      The same clothes can be bought at Kmart or the warehouse for $60 but they aren’t the right colour or have the proper stripe.
      
      6 0
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      October 22, 2025 3:32pm
      - greybeard
        
        Exactly ! Same basic uniform for everyone, with an individual tie / hat, scarf, socks, whatever to denote the school.
        
        3 0
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        October 22, 2025 6:30pm
  - Eastlander
    
    ‘Lower decile families’ always have money for drugs and other luxuries. Pleas of poverty from such people are best answered with batons.
    
    5 1
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    October 22, 2025 1:20pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  cmm I think you may be throwing the baby out with the bath water here in pursuit of purist libertarian ideology or similar. Seems like a reasonably good incentive for “struggling parents” (in all shades of that meaning) to make an effort to have their kids attend school (for now, until levels of societal sanity are largely restored). Carrot AND stick is probably the way forward.
  
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  October 23, 2025 5:01pm
Jack5

New Zealand’s abolition of stamp duty on property sales — and absence of capital gains tax — is held up in a Telegraph article as a warning to UK citizens.

The headline says of NZ: “A fundamental flaw in the country’s plan to reboot its economy serves as a warning for Britain”.

In 1999, NZ abolished stamp duty to help correct its distorted property market, writes Benedict J. Smith.

(The Government that year abolished conveyance duty ranging from 1 per cent on the first $50,000 of sale price to 2 per cent plus $1,250 on sales over $100,000. It also abolished duty of 40c per $100 on maximum annual rent.)

Smith reports Terry Baucher, a “UK tax expert based in Auckland,” as saying this “inadvertently caused house prices to accelerate and home ownership to fall because the government missed a fundamental flaw in their original plan: a lack of capital gains tax.”

Baucher says this “tilted the balance of purchases in favour of investors, who were more able to compete directly with first-time buyers and squeeze them out of the market.”

By 2015, median house prices soared 180 per cent in the 16 years after since the total removal of stamp duty. Three years later, a government report revealed home ownership had fallen to its lowest rate in almost 70 years.
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October 22, 2025 1:11pm
- imalwaysright
  
  There are many reasons for why the government should take someones money.
  But the fact remains that they are still taking it.
  
  5 1
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  October 22, 2025 3:36pm
  - MCōs
    
    The biggest government expenditure is healthcare, education, NZ superannuation, finance & social support
    Need to get the money from somewhere or shut down a few hospitals, schools or whatever
    https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/133428/budget-202526-summary-all-spending-plans
    
    0 0
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    October 22, 2025 7:09pm
Ghost

Decided to turn on parliament to see the circus for a change, lol

Petition of Brian Webb: Prevent Trump and associates with convictions from entering or investing in NZ
1 1
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October 22, 2025 2:08pm
- Ghost
  
  That’s enough parliament tv for this year. Wonder how the $2 shop will survive now the greens aren’t wearing tea towels
  
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  October 22, 2025 2:24pm
Ghost

I hope no one from this blog is harassing the person who complained about plunket

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iKnFqIyrPY
1 2
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October 22, 2025 2:36pm
Chuck Bird

Below is a quote from Luxon on The Country at midday. He is doing exactly what he says politicians should not do. He is telling farmers what to medicate their sheep and cattle with to reduce methane. Farmers do not want to do this.

Look, I just think farmers have had enough, as I
said to the other day, of politicians telling them what
they should or shouldn’t do. It’s their livelihood, that’s their decision.
They’re smart business people. We’re very grateful for what they’re doing hauling us out of recession, and that’s really a decision for them. They’re quite capable of making that decision without politicians are injecting their reckons into the mix.
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October 22, 2025 2:46pm
- Tomtoddy
  
  You are dead right Chuck. 94% of farmers have already made their decision – when polled they said we are not using any mitigation tools.
  
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  October 22, 2025 3:23pm
cas

Not content with a documentary, an autobiography and a kid’s book, our lovely ex PM is adorning the cover of this week’s Women’s Weekly. I wonder whether it’s part of her strategy to get another job. Harvard must be coming to an end. There are only so many lectures you can hear about kindness.
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October 22, 2025 2:46pm
- imalwaysright
  
  There will be a job going at the BSA real soon. Maybe she’s got her eye on being our communications overlord?
  
  7 1
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  October 22, 2025 3:39pm
- Taieri
  
  our lovely ex PM is adorning the cover of this week’s Women’s Weekly
  ————-
  
  Suitable for framing?
  
  2 0
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  October 22, 2025 6:08pm
- Scooter
  
  She went to Oxford UK in March. She must be running out of overseas Uni’s she can hide in soon.
  
  https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-03-25-former-new-zealand-prime-minister-rt-hon-dame-jacinda-ardern-join-blavatnik-school
  
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  October 22, 2025 6:59pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  There are only so many rich and silly “you-go-girl” cultists willing to pay to listen to frankly, some pretty ordinary stuff. I think that party is coming to an end.
  
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  October 23, 2025 5:06pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360862525/i-cant-comprehend-it-heartbreak-after-couples-home-18-years-burns-down

“The couple’s heartbreak at losing everything had been compounded by not having insurance.”

Well, they were bloody stupid. And no doubt they now expect someone else to pay for their stupidity.
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October 22, 2025 6:24pm

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